Blogs from Lombok, Indonesia, Asia - page 47

The public ferry to Lombok is a very interesting thing indeed. There we were, the 6 of us, packed into the ferry amongst the locals who were, as always, smoking like a bunch of little chimneys. Next to where we were sitting in the boat there were rows upon rows of huge communal mattresses. Indonesians, as Guillaume had described in the previous blog, have this amazing skills of being able to fall asleep anywhere at any time. It's remarkable, really. So we watched as they loaded up onto these mattresses, snuggled up with the stranger next to them, and slipped into a peaceful sleep for the remainder of the trip. It was about at this very moment when Guillaume came to the conclusion that his good friend, Marc-Antoine, is not fully human...but rather a half human, ... read more

Now we are going to just basically go on and on and on about how great Gili Trawangan is. It is like heaven, paradise. I'm not sure if the contrast between here and Kuta makes it all the better but this place is lush. We got to spend 6 days in Paradise. We met some people who had arrived and ended up spending their whole time in Indonesia here. We found people who had come and never left and now work and live here. It's so nice and chilled with beautiful beaches. The Journey Before we reached Paradise we had to go through hell. We basically decided to save moeny to do the journey ourselves. We had heard awful things about the ferry journey and we weren't really looking forward to it. The ferry was ... read more

We were looking forward to a holiday feel in Indonesia after spending the last 6 weeks sleeping in a car round New Zealand and Australia. We landed in Kuta, Bali and got the bus to PadangBai for our journey to Lombok. There we were drinking our cokes and watching the world go by when the boat arrived. Ok, we thought, it doesn't leave for 30 minutes, so we'll walk the 400m no problem. If only it was that easy. We had our first experience of scooter riding, complete with crazed driver, 15kg rucksacks on our back, day bags on the front, no where to hang on and trying to dodge potholes, people and trucks haphazardly parked with their veggies spilling everywhere. All was well as we fell off them and clambered on board. We found ... read more

Samir's article. It was a dark and stormy afternoon... but before that, us kids went to a batik class. (And it wasn't all that dark). Batik is when you put wax on cloth where you don't want it to be dyed, and it ends up with a neat stained look. We all made T-shirts and our teacher was very nice and helpful. (By the way, this was still in Bali.) After that though, we got caught in a rain storm, which was a bad way to end our travels in Bali. The day after Jamil's birthday, which we spent mostly on a nasty ferry to Lombok, Mom and Dad let Jamil pick out a semi-deluxe resort to say at for only $105 dollars for two rooms per night (not that bad at all). We stayed ... read more

From Lovina, we bussed back to Kuta in the south (also near the airport). Matt made arrangements to head home. I met up with another friend from Vancouver and after a day of wandering around busy, touristy Kuta the two of us made the epic journey to Gili Air. Gili Air is one of what are known as "the Gilis," group of three small islands located off the northwest coast of Lombok. Gili means "island" and air means "water" in the indonesian language. Ironically, it is not easy to find water on this island. There are no lakes or creeks. Brackish (partly salty) groundwater is pumped up and used for cleaning and bathing. Drinking water is imported from Lombok. Gili Air is nearly circular in shape and approximately 1.5 to 2 kilometers through the middle. The ... read more